"One Thing We Knew For Sure"—Blending Science and Social Studies into STAR

by Christina Cronin and Maura McCabe, STAR teachers at the Abisi Adult Education program in Lowell, MA

When we first found out that it was time for our school to adopt the STAR model, and that we would have to attend several training days over several months, we were a bit overwhelmed, honestly. Once the training was complete, we had to figure out just how to implement STAR into our program. While we knew it would take extensive planning on our parts, our director was on board with building planning time into our schedules to allow us to create and build thematic STAR units. One thing we knew for sure was that our lower level learners really enjoyed learning about science and history blended into their reading and writing instruction. This one bit of consistent feedback from them, over several years, served as a springboard for our STAR planning.

In the Beginning

When our students begin, they each receive an orientation, during which they learn about the rules and regulations at Abisi Adult Education, and about the STAR program. Each student is given a binder to keep all of their STAR materials organized. This binder is kept at school. In the binder, students are given a handout that explains the four components of STAR (Phonics/Alphabetics, Vocabulary, Fluency and Comprehension). The binder also includes their personalized schedule, a Knowledge Rating Scale, and a Vocabulary Quadrant.

Diagnosis

In our program, the TABE locator flags students who might qualify for STAR, who then take the MAPT to confirm their placement into the STAR group. Students whose MAPT scores qualify them for STAR are immediately scheduled for a DAR appointment. (Find DAR information on pages 6–8 of the Massachusetts STAR Handbook.) We administer the DAR at the beginning of the year during our registration period. As the year progresses and new students register and are flagged as STAR, they are given a DAR appointment date previous to the next managed enrollment start date (every 6-8 weeks).

Once we have DAR scores, we use chart paper divided into quadrants to form groupings for Fluency, Alphabetics, Vocabulary, and Comprehension. We display the quadrants for students at the front of the classroom. Typically, every time new students begin and we start a new unit, we create a new quadrant. This year, we are using clothespins with students’ first names on them to be able to visually display groupings of students. These groups are fluid, so as students make progress, this will make moving them to new groups much easier. It should be noted that with each new rotation, DAR scores fluctuate, so we try to modify and find curriculum to match each groupings’ needs.

DAR = Diagnostic Assessment of Reading

TABE Locator
\/
MAPT
\/
DAR
\/
Classroom groups

Creating Curriculum—the Content

When creating the curriculum, we generally begin by choosing a topic for the unit and then looking at a calendar to see how many weeks we have before our next start date for students. Our program manages enrollment with new students starting classes every 6 or 7 weeks. Once we know how many weeks we have for a unit, we then begin planning it out in a logical sequence, deciding the main concepts and topics to focus on.

One such planning calendar is shown here. Please note that it's a draft, a rough copy for planning, and may therefore include grammatical mistakes!

Creating Curriculum—STAR Planning

When we have decided upon concepts and topics, we then begin to create materials to be used for each week. We typically take the time to comb through all of our book resources and flag and copy anything relating to the topics we’ve laid out on our planning calendar. We are fortunate enough to have purchased many resources through our school budget, but we also utilize and print a lot of articles from many online resources.

We then look at all of these copies to find similar content at three different Fluency level ranges, as well as find two different levels of Comprehension resources to use with our groups for each weekly topic for the unit. We then blend into each week two levels of Alphabetics and two levels of Vocabulary lessons. While these are often more isolated lessons, by the end of each week, we try to give our students opportunities to use their vocabulary words to create sentences that connect to the unit’s theme!

Student Groups:
Fluency—3 levels, twice a week
Alphabetics—2 levels, twice a week
Vocabulary—2 levels, three times a week
Comprehension—2 levels, twice a week

The Schedule

On Mondays, we take about 15 minutes to introduce the week’s topic with various resources (video clips, Ted Talks, etc.) to pique interest and give students visuals to connect to before they have to read about the topic in their Fluency groups. We then have Vocabulary and Alphabetics time. 

On Tuesdays, we review and recap what we learned on Monday and often watch a different video clip, view a short PowerPoint, do a short hands-on activity, or do a class KWL, etc. This would be followed by a second day of Fluency, Vocabulary, and Alphabetics. 

Vocabulary and Comprehension groups are done on Wednesdays, and on Thursday, we finish up with another Comprehension activity. 

We have found this to be perfect timing, as after both seeing and reading about a topic for 2 days with openers and Fluency, students are ready to try their knowledge and understanding with various leveled Comprehension activities.

Besides 5.25 hours of STAR instruction per week, our students also receive 2.5 hours of writing instruction, 5 hours of math instruction and a College Career/Technology class.  A sample copy of our student schedule is shown here.

Weekly STAR Schedule
5.25 hours

Mondays:
Topic Intro
Fluency, Vocabulary, Alphabetics

Tuesdays:
Review, more topic info
Fluency, Vocabulary, Alphabetics

Wednesdays:
Vocabulary, Comprehension

Thursdays:
Comprehension

Setting up the Space and Materials

We have tried to create a welcoming and user-friendly STAR classroom for our students and teachers.  We have a station for teacher use that includes teacher resources, templates for fluency and Comprehension as well as general supplies like post-it notes, markers, pens and pencils.  

Posters at the front of the room remind everyone what the elements of STAR are, and student names are shown on star cut-outs.

We have color-coded the 4 components of reading in an effort to minimize stress and help keep students (and staff) organized: Alphabetics/Phonics is green, Fluency is purple, Vocabulary is yellow, and Comprehension is blue. We find that photocopying materials for each component on colored paper helps the management of class time. 

Increasing student’s vocabulary knowledge is a key component of STAR, so we also like to post our vocabulary words each week. Since we have 2 different groups for Vocabulary who meet in different rooms, we have a vocabulary board in each room, with the words appropriate to the group that meets there.

We encourage students to refer to the words on their wall and to try to use them as much as possible! Once introduced, students make their own sentences with their vocabulary words, and we encourage students to use them in the context of our unit themes. During vocabulary review weeks, students have the opportunity to create crossword puzzles on computers for their peers to practice with.  

In an effort to create independent learners, we have also set up a station for students to use. The student station includes extra copies of the Knowledge Rating Scale, Vocabulary quadrants, and Vocabulary sentence sheets, as well as various Comprehension and Alphabetics templates. The station is designed so that as the year progresses, students can take templates as they run out.

The student station is shown here, with student binders and color-coded strategy templates for each of the four components.

Is it worth it?

Although STAR takes a lot of pre-planning, we are fortunate to have our director’s support for building in adequate planning time and ordering necessary materials. We feel that color-coding and organizing some of the key STAR elements has greatly improved our efficiency and our student’s comfort with this reading program.

The feedback we have received from our students has been very positive, and they have shown great improvements through STAR! In last year’s class of 15, we post-tested 12 (3 left the program). 11 out of these 12 students showed improved scores, and 6 of those 11 made Measurable Skills Gains. We also recently found out that four of our former STAR students are now enrolled at Middlesex Community College.

Yes, it is!

---

Maura and Christina are both full-time teachers at the the Abisi Adult Education Center in Lowell, MA.

Maura has been in education since 1992, registering and testing students at the Abisi center, teaching elementary and special education in Tyngsborough, and teaching part-time at Abisi.

Christina began her education practice as a middle school math and science teacher in Danvers in 1997. She also taught part-time at the Abisi before becoming full-time.

Read more about STAR, and find sample materials from Maura and Christina's STAR classes (coming soon).

See also To the Point: WIOA, EBRI, & STAR.